Here's what you need to know today:
Drugs, cash seized in raids
Three people have been arrested in Launceston following a major police operation "targeting drug trafficking", Tasmania Police say.
A 38-year-old Newstead man, a 28-year-old Kings Meadows man and a 26-year-old Mowbray woman are in custody as part of an ongoing investigation, police said in a statement.
"About 60 members of Northern Drug Investigation Services and CIB, supported by general and specialist police including drug detection dogs, simultaneously executed a number of search warrants at a number of addresses in the Launceston area," the statement said.
"Significant seizures have been made as a result of the investigation. This includes … a trafficable quantity of drugs, including ice, MDMA and cannabis [and a] significant quantity of cash."
Police said the searches "relate to an extensive ongoing investigation targeting the organised trafficking of illicit drugs including crystal methylamphetamine (ICE) in Tasmania".
Bushfire readiness under spotlight
The topic of Tasmania's preparations for the bushfire season has dominated Question Time in State Parliament today.
Greens MP Rosalie Woodruff pressed Mark Shelton — the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Management — about how many of Tasmania's Remote Area firefighters would be ready to be deployed to bushfires "tomorrow".
Mr Shelton said remote team — who are specially trained to respond to fire in wilderness zones and remain there for extended periods — would be ready by the first of December, but would not say how many.
"That program is ongoing and it'll be in place by the beginning of the bushfire season," he said.
Labor leader Rebecca White also asked the minister to confirm whether during recent bushfires at Lachlan and Scamander the TFS had to draw from other agencies to find enough staff to put together incident management teams.
Mr Shelton said it was "normal practice" for staff from other agencies to be part of incident management teams during bushfires.
"It is a matter for the chief fire officer in relation to staffing, and he has advised me that he is not aware of any issues with staffing incident management teams in relation to the fire several weeks ago," he said.
Murder accused in court
A West Australian woman charged with the murder of her mother has appeared in court in Launceston.
Veronica Corstophine, 71, was found by police in her South Launceston home late last month, but police allege she was murdered almost a month earlier.
Last week, 46-year-old Natalie Maher was arrested in Bunbury in Western Australia and charged with the murder of her mother.
Ms Maher was living with Ms Corstophine in Launceston for two months before travelling to WA on October 5, two days after the alleged murder.
She was extradited to Tasmania and appeared in the Magistrates Court in Launceston this morning.
She did not enter a plea and has been remanded in custody until next month.
Young pregnant smokers on the rise
New figures show more young Tasmanian women are smoking while pregnant.
The Tasmanian Health Department data shows that in 2017, 40 per cent of pregnant women under the age of 20 were smoking, up from 34.7 per cent the year before.
In the 20-24 age bracket, almost 27 per cent of pregnant women were smoking.
The only age group that saw a decline in smoking rates was women over 40, dropping 4.2 per cent from the year before.
Dr Kathryn Barnsley from Smoke Free Tasmania said smoking during pregnancy could seriously harm an unborn child.
"Later in life these same children grow into adults, they're more likely to get diabetes, they're more likely to have heart disease as a result of their mothers smoking," she said.
The lobby group is calling for more action to stop young mothers smoking.
"We should not blame the mothers, we should blame the tobacco industry and the peak retail organisations who are pushing this drug on young people and we should blame the government for not doing anything about it," Dr Barnsley said.
Lake Malbena court ruling no hurdle, says proponent
The proponent behind a controversial tourism project proposed for Lake Malbena in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage area says yesterday's Federal Court ruling will have no real implications for the project.
The Wilderness Society challenged the Federal Government's process for approving the luxury standing camp inside the Walls of Jerusalem National Park on three grounds.
The Federal Court yesterday upheld two out of the three grounds, finding the assessment needed more work, and requiring the existing mitigations and avoidance measures to be legally binding.
Project proponent Daniel Hackett told ABC Radio Hobart no further work was required on his part and he was looking forward to getting on with the project.
The Wilderness Society's Tom Allen said it was a good outcome.
"Basically there were three main grounds to our case. We won on two of them and we're still trying to understand the details of the third one and we're very pleased that we've been granted costs as well," he said.
Weather
Today's forecast is for showers throughout the state, snow to 800 metres, and strong and gusty west to south-westerly winds.
Thursday will see more wet and windy weather.
A full and updated list of warnings can be found on the Bureau of Meteorology's Tasmanian Warnings summary webpage.
As of 7:00am the Pinnacle Road to the summit of Hobart's kunanyi/Mount Wellington was closed at The Springs.
Check the council website for the updated status of Pinnacle Road.
| Forecast * all temperatures in Celsius | Maximum | Minimum |
| Burnie | 16 | 5 |
| Cape Bruny | 15 | 6 |
| Devonport | 16 | 6 |
| Hobart | 16 | 6 |
| King Island | 15 | 8 |
| Flinders Island | 15 | 7 |
| Launceston | 17 | 5 |
| Liawenee | 7 | -3 |
| Port Arthur | 15 | 5 |
| Smithton | 14 | 8 |
| Swansea | 17 | 5 |
| Queenstown | 13 | 5 |
Source: Bureau of Meteorology
